


Bittersweet Between his Teeth

by Anefi



Series: Young Blood [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Pack Building, Pack Dynamics, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale, Pre-Slash, Sterek Week 2018, Stiles Stilinski Joins the Hale Pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 10:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16574615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anefi/pseuds/Anefi
Summary: After Derek becomes the alpha, Stiles goes back to the Hale house.





	Bittersweet Between his Teeth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AJenno](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJenno/gifts).



> This was written for a Discord challenge: a drabble or a double drabble of a Sterek scene from the show you would rewrite to make more deserving of Sterek or a continuation of a Sterek scene from the show that maybe got cut too soon. I wrote... more than that, and then posted it on Tumblr for Sterek Week 2018 Day Four - Alternate Canon. Thanks for the prompt, Ana!

It was quiet when he snuck back to the Hale house, the clearing hushed like even nocturnal birds and animals were respecting the crime scene. He wasn’t sure why Derek would still be here, but he had a hunch. The hunch was: Derek had nowhere else to go. Even after all the terrible things that had happened in this half-acre patch of burnt woods, Derek still thought of it as home. Maybe the fresh coat of tragedy and gunpowder would be enough to make the idea of sleeping here less appealing than hunting for an apartment—if Derek stayed in Beacon Hills at all. That thought had hit him like a ball of ice, had burned through his exhaustion and driven him back here, to the most recent setting of his future nightmares.

The creak of the porch steps made him freeze, skin taut over racing blood, even as he reminded himself that Derek would have heard him coming a mile away. He took another step, then two, past the gaping front door ragged with bullet holes.

Stiles cleared his throat, as if that could keep his voice from cracking. “Derek?”

 Silence was his only answer, but it was a particular quality of silence, one that Stiles had become pretty well acquainted with. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

“Hey,” Stiles said to the stiff shadow above the stairs. The dull gleam of unearthly red slowly expanded from slits as the new alpha’s eyes opened just enough to glare at him.

“Go home,” Derek said.

“I went,” Stiles said. He’d changed, showered, picked up the spare key for the jeep, and made Jackson ferry him back to the parking garage where Peter had threatened and abandoned him, a lifetime ago. Jackson had been white-knuckled and silent the entire way; small mercies. That wouldn’t last. “Now, I’m back.”

The red eyes vanished, and Stiles heard a soft thump as Derek dropped his head back against the wall. “Why.”

“Um.” Stiles kind of wanted to step further in and close the door behind him, but he wasn’t sure normal house etiquette applied to half-torched, bloodstained, bullet-riddled husks. He shuffled in place. “So. You’re the alpha.”

Silence.

“How’s that… going,” he tried.

The silence somehow gave him the impression that if he had werewolf powers, he’d hear Derek grinding his teeth.

“I just ask because… well. The last guy who was the alpha, he was… how do I say this? Nuts. Totally nuts.”

“Stiles.”

“He was _so_ nuts that the drive to make a pack had him immediately deciding that his number one priority was to bite literally the first asshole he ran into, which was _Scott_. And you saw how that turned out for him. Not to mention, the whole string of murders afterwards was murder on—on my dad.”

Silence.

“So you see where I’m going with this.”

The red eyes flared again, brighter. The upper floor creaked dangerously as Derek leaned forward. “Are you asking?”

“I—.” Despite the open door at his back and that half the house was ripped open to the woods, Stiles felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. He took a few deep breaths. Licked his lips. “What?”

“Are. You. Asking.”

“For—am I asking for the bite?”

“Yes, Stiles. Are you asking for the bite.”

“ _No!_ ”

“Then why are you _here?_ ” The eyes rose gracefully as Derek stood up to loom harder, brightening as they caught more light, or Stiles’s eyes adjusted. Or maybe the glow burned hotter as Derek got pissed.

“I just came to check on you! God! I don’t want you to bite me, but I—”

“That’s a lie.”

Stiles felt his heart leap into his throat, shook his head against the memory of Peters teeth against his wrist. “You can listen to my heartbeat from all the way up there? That’s—ha. Freaky alpha hearing.” The sudden sweat on the back of his neck was clammy as he wiped it away.

“Stiles,” Derek snapped, and whatever it was that always drew Stiles’s attention no matter how scattered, like a magnet, like a lightning bolt, it was stronger now. It rang inside him, echoing, reverberating, so that one word had him reeling like a struck tuning fork, answering before he could catch his breath.

“I’m not—it’s not a lie. I mean, who doesn’t want superpowers, right? But I—You said it could kill me.” And so had Peter. “I can’t do that to my dad, Derek. I can’t leave him alone.”

The palpable cloud of menace slowly receded. The red vanished. “Okay,” Derek said, strangely subdued.

Stiles gaped into the darkness, thrown by the simple acceptance. But. Derek knew something about being left.

So Stiles barreled on, rather than let either of them dwell on it. “That’s a yes on the instincts, I guess. If you’re just handing out wolf bites to whoever drops by.”

“Laura fought it for years,” Derek said, and even from the upper story, it felt close. Confessional. “I’ll—I can control it.” From how he was struggling to even say it, Stiles was skeptical.

“She had a pack,” Stiles pointed out. “She had you.”

Silence.

Stiles licked his lips again, heart pounding. Closed his eyes. “I know you can have humans in a pack. I know—your family had humans. And I’ve been in Scott’s pack. Since. So far.” Derek made a dark, derisive noise, and Stiles hurried to finish before he got angry again, or laughed. “If it’s okay that I’m human—that I stay human, I could—I would—"

He barely registered the shriek of the bannister as Derek leapt over, or the displaced rush of air. The solid landing, on the weakened floorboards right in front of him, almost brought Stiles to his knees. “Whoa, hey—"

“Don’t joke about this,” Derek said, eyes like a banked fire, too close to look away from, close enough that Stiles could feel the raw heat of him, breathed in the animal musk and ash and—pond scum, weirdly, like he’d jumped in a lake. His palm was hot through Stiles’s thin t-shirt, shoving him back against the wall, splayed fingers digging in like he could pick Stiles up like a basketball, like he could tear out his heart, and maybe he could. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it,” he said, but it sounded like he was the one torn open, bleeding out. This close, the darkness weak between them, Stiles could see the wildness, the fear, that his whole façade was made up of cracks, barely strung together. Stiles realized with a jolt that if he pushed him just right, dug his fingers into the sensitive places, he could make Derek shatter.

Somehow, that made it easier to rest his hand over Derek’s, to lightly press that trembling power even closer to his heart. “I mean it,” Stiles said, meeting his eyes, steady, strong. “I want to be in your pack.”

Derek’s fingers spasmed hard enough that Stiles was pretty sure he’d have bruises in the morning, and the air between them was full again of that pressure Derek had reeled in earlier, the weight of his power. The scarce inches separating them were charged with a turbulent potential that Stiles could almost feel like static on his skin. Slowly, carefully, eyes burning, Derek leaned closer.  Stiles had to bite his lip and try not to hyperventilate, couldn’t help but glance down at his mouth as it opened, and he couldn’t keep in a gasp when the edge of Derek’s teeth shone in reflected starlight. The fangs. The _fangs_. His heart kicked into higher gear and he struggled, on instinct, lashing out, but of course he was stuck, trapped, pinned like a bug, like an _idiot_ —

“Ssh,” Derek murmured, gentle, around his _huge fucking fangs_. “You have to submit.”

Stiles threw his head back with a high, sharp laugh, because _what did that even mean?_ and then his whole body was shuddering, beyond his control, because Derek’s fangs were on him, on his _neck_ , the barest pressure around his pounding jugular. “Ssh,” Derek said again, and the soft brush of his lips sparked a different kind of shudder entirely, the adrenaline and the heat and the way his skin always leapt to Derek’s touch crashing against each other in a way that was consuming, and mortifying, and entirely not his fault.

“Okay,” Stiles said, sucking in a deep breath, willing it to be true. “Okay, we’re doing this now. This is happening.” He squeezed his eyes shut, unclenched his abused muscles one by one until he could slump against the wall, let Derek take his weight as his warm breath dampened Stiles’s neck. Derek, the bastard, only hummed, giving him yet another sensation to try not to react to. “Ugh.” Not sure what to do with his arms, he tried awkwardly setting one on Derek’s gently heaving shoulder, wrapping the other around in an uncomfortable kind of hug.

Eventually, teeth that had gone human-blunt pulled back entirely, and Derek kind of stiffened. Stiles magnanimously decided to ignore Derek’s embarrassment as he came back to himself. He didn't let go.

“You are _rank,_ dude. Did you go run through a swamp?” he said instead.

“Lake,” Derek admitted. He could've backed up, stepped free. He didn't. “Shut up.” He nuzzled into the curve of Stiles’s shoulder a little, like he could do it stealthily. “Pack members should respect the alpha.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah? Well, you’ve met me, so if that was a requirement, you shouldn’t have said yes.” He risked a condescending pat on the head, Derek’s hair thick under his fingers, still a little damp. “I don’t think I could respect anyone who smells this fucking terrible.” He ignored Derek’s grumble. “If we’re going to get anyone else to join this pack, you’ll have to shower. Like, regularly.”

The scrape of Derek’s stubble on the delicate skin of his neck sent shivers all the way to his toes, and he _felt_ Derek’s toothy grin in response.

This was either the best or the worst idea he’d ever had.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](anefan.tumblr.com)! I take prompts :)


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